page_title: Iliza Shlesinger
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Iliza Shlesinger / Career
caption_attribution_description: Comedian Iliza Shlesinger performs for soldiers and airmen from Atlantic Resolve Forces during the USO Holiday Tour in Powidz, Poland Dec. 26, 2017. Dunford and Troxell, along with USO entertainers, visited service members who are deployed during the holidays. This year’s entertainers are Chef Robert Irvine, wrestler Gail Kim, comedian Iliza Shlesinger, actor Adam Devine, country musician Jerrod Niemann, and WWE Superstars “The Miz” and Alicia Fox. (DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro/Released)
context_page_description: Iliza Vie Shlesinger is an American comedian, actress and television host. Born in New York City, she was raised in Dallas, Texas. Shlesinger was the 2008 winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing and went on to host the syndicated dating show Excused and the TBS game show Separation Anxiety.
  In 2017, she hosted her own late-night talk show called Truth & Iliza on Freeform. As of 2020, she has released five comedy specials on Netflix. Her sketch comedy show The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show premiered on Netflix on April 1, 2020.
context_section_description: After graduating from college, Shlesinger moved to Los Angeles to pursue stand-up comedy. She was one of the most popular members of the Whiteboy Comedy group of standup comedians in Los Angeles, which brought her to the stage at The Improv in Hollywood.
  In 2007, Shlesinger won Myspace's So You Think You're Funny contest and has been featured as the G4 network's Myspace Girl of the Week. Her television credits include E! Network's Forbes Celebrity 100, TV Guide's America's Next Top Producer, Comedy Central Presents Season 14 Episode 18, John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show, Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed, and History Channel's History of a Joke. She has written for Heavy.com and had her own show on GOTV's mobile network.
  In 2008, Shlesinger became the first woman, and the youngest, winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, in the series' sixth season. She was twice selected by other comedians, to compete in the head-to-head eliminations, winning each time. She appeared in The Last Comic Standing Tour.
  Shlesinger worked with Lewis Black to contribute to Surviving the Holidays, a History Channel holiday special, and narrated the 2009 documentary Imagine It!² The Power of Imagination. In 2010, she released an on-demand comedy video, Man Up and Act Like a Lady, and an on-demand comedy album, iliza LIVE, on her website, via The ConneXtion. Around the time of these releases, Shlesinger appeared in a business comedy video series for Slate.
  Shlesinger hosted The Weakly News on TheStream.tv from July 7, 2007 to April 9, 2012. She also hosted Excused, a syndicated American reality-based dating competition series, which ran from 2011 to 2013. She co-stars in the 2013 film Paradise. She began a podcast called Truth and Iliza in August 2014. Featuring celebrity guests & personal friends, the semi-weekly podcast is a forum for discussing matters which bother her and those on the show, with punk theme song performed by Being Mean to Pixley.
  Shlesinger was comic co-host of StarTalk Radio Show with Neil DeGrasse Tyson for season 7, episode 12 titled Cosmic Queries: Galactic Grab Bag, post date: 20 May 2016.
  On July 13, 2016, the ABCdigital original short-form digital comedy series Forever 31, created by and starring Shlesinger was released.
  A late night show for Iliza Shlesinger was placed into development in September 2016 for the cable channel Freeform.   Truth & Iliza began airing on May 2, 2017, and ran for six episodes.
  On November 7, 2017, Weinstein Books published Shlesinger's book Girl Logic: The Genius and the Absurdity with an introduction by Mayim Bialik.
  In December 2017, it was reported the comedian was sued by a man who was denied admission to one of her girls-only shows. The initial complaint was dismissed and then refiled as a class action suit.
caption: Shlesinger performing in 2017
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